Quotes About Reality

But all stories are made up," I offered. "All telling is retelling, and therefore it is fiction. Everybody knows that.

Tertawa bisa menunda kesangsian. Itulah efek narkotik seni. Aku akan hirup habis-habisan karena besok semuanya akan punah dan kita semua akan merasa hampa.

A great deal of our suffering arises because we are conflicted about reputation. Instead of being concerned about the reality of what we are, we're concerned about what other people think of us. We're too outward looking. That's incredible. As far as Buddhism is concerned, that's a sick mind; totally, clinically sick.

There is no miserable place waiting for you, no hell realm, sitting and waiting like Alaska—waiting to turn you into ice cream. But whatever you call it—hell or the suffering realms—it is something that you enter by creating a world of neurotic fantasy and believing it to be real. It sounds simple, but that's exactly what happens.

The ego is the mind that misunderstands the nature of the I. We generally feel that the I exists somewhere vaguely within the body. To gain a correct picture of reality, it is necessary to investigate deeply and try to find out exactly where this I resides. When we make a thorough search for our self, looking throughout our entire body and nervous system, we can never find it. Sometimes we may think we have located it, but upon closer examination we can see that we have been deceived.

Utopias are often just premature truths.

What mortal is there, over whose first joys and happiness does not break some storm, dispelling with its icy breath his fanciful illusions, and shattering his altar?

I'd wanted to be a writer my whole life. But when I finally made it, I felt like a greyhound catching the mechanical rabbit she'd been chasing for so long--discovering it was merely metal, wrapped in cloth. It wasn't alive; it had no spirit. It was fake.

It's because of the way you are. It's why you're happy reading novels. You're only comfortable with a piece of the world that you can hold in your hand.

[A Polaroid camera] places before you a thing that is more of the thing than the thing was.

You always start with a fantasy. Part of the fantasy technique is to visualize something as perfect. Then with the experiments you work back from the fantasy to reality, hacking away at the components.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

There was beauty in the idea of freedom, but it was an illusion. Every human heart was chained by love.

There is truth in stories," said Arthur. "There is truth in one of your paintings, boy or in a sunset or a couplet from Homer. Fiction is truth, even if it is not a fact. If you believe only in facts and forget stories, your brain will live, but your heart will die.

When no one you know tells the truth, you learn to see under the surface.

Magnus raised his hands above his head and clapped once. The room flooded with light. "You see? You think that would be possible without magic? "Actually," replied Simon, "It is. If you watched infomercials you'd know that.

Fiction is truth, even if it is not fact. If you believe only in facts and forget stories, your brain will live, but your heart will die.

The point of stories is not that they are objectively true, but that the soul of the story is truer than reality. Those who mock fiction do so because they fear the truth.

It's always better to live the truth than to live a lie.

If there was one thing she was learning from all this, it was how easy it was to lose everything you had always thought you'd have forever.

Seeing through glamour is easy. It's people that are hard.

I dreamed of a green place once," he whispered. "A manor house and a little girl with red hair, and preparations for a wedding. If there are other worlds, then maybe there is one where I was a good brother and a good son.

he's probably never met a six-foot tall hot elf-women in a fur bikini either.

Hope is not an illusion.